Sky TV – How to Watch Sky in Other Rooms

If you’re signed up to Sky’s digital TV service, you may be considering connecting Sky to other rooms in your house. We explain the options.

Watching Sky in multiple rooms…

If you’re considering getting Sky in different rooms of your house, there are basically three ways you can do this:

Connect your Sky box to a second TV with high-quality co-ax aerial cable, or

Connect your Sky box to a second TV with a wireless video sender, or

Get an extra Sky box for the second TV set

Next, we’ll explain all of the options:

Option 1: Connect your Sky Digibox to a second TV set with aerial cable

Upside: With this option, you won’t need to get an extra set-top box, or get an extra subscription to Sky.

Downside: You have to run an aerial lead through your house to the other TV.

Downside: A Sky box can only display one thing at a time. You will only be able to watch whatever the main Sky box is showing (i.e. you can’t watch one Sky channel in one room, and a different Sky channel in another).

For this option, you will need to run co-ax aerial cable from the back of your Sky box to the back of the second TV set. Ideally, you should try to use high-quality double-screen co-ax aerial cable to reduce interference.

You can buy extension kits in different lengths at Maplin and Argos. See below for an example of an extension kit.

If you don’t want to use an aerial extension kit, you will need to use a suitable length of co-ax aerial cable, a bag of cleats to nail the aerial cable to your skirting board and a co-ax aerial plug for each end.

Once you have the aerial lead in place, on the back of the Sky box, you will find two aerial output sockets, labeled RF1 and RF2. Connect one end of your aerial extension lead to the RF2 socket, and the other end to the second TV set.

The RF2 socket at the back of a Sky+HD box

With the connection in place, the last step is to tune the second TV into the output of the Sky box. By default, your Sky box should be broadcasting on Channel 68, so tune a spare preset on your telly to that channel, and you should be in business.

More than one TV? If you want to connect to more than one TV, consider a splitter or booster:

Aerial Splitter. Handy for splitting a single aerial to feed two TVs. Available from Maplin

Aerial Booster with multiple outputs, handy if you get signal loss over a long cable run. Available from Maplin

Problems?

If you can’t tune your TV in, or you need to change the default channel number that the Sky box uses, you can check the RF output settings from a hidden menu option on your Sky box:

Change the RF channel number to a number of your choosing (between 21 and 68). It’s important not to clash with a TV service on the same number. If you find that one of your TV channels goes fuzzy, change the RF channel number again.

The RF Outlets setting on a Sky+HD box

Also note that if you’re feeding to lots of TV sets, or have a very long cable run, you may need either a splitter or booster to allow you to split and amplify the aerial co-ax output, without too much quality loss.

Changing Channels with a Sky TV Link…

If you’ve made an aerial connection from your Sky box to a second TV, the next thing you may want to do, is be able to change channels on your Sky box remotely from the second room.

To do this, get a Sky TV Link/Eye. This plugs in between the aerial cable and your second TV set, and has a little infrared eye that you position near your TV. When you point a Sky remote at the eye, the signal shoots down the aerial wire to the Sky box, and changes channel.

Sky TV Links are available from Maplin or Argos (as are spare Sky remote controls).

Option 2: Connect your Sky Digibox to a second TV wirelessly

Upside: With this option, you won’t need to get an extra set-top box, or get an extra subscription to Sky.

Downside:A Sky box can only display one thing at a time. You will only be able to watch whatever the main Sky box is showing (i.e. you can’t watch one Sky channel in one room, and a different Sky channel in another).

With this option, you don’t need to run cables. Get a Wireless Video Sender kit, which has a transmitter and receiver. These connect to a spare SCART socket on your Sky box, and a SCART socket on your second TV set.

With Sky Multiroom, you will have a separate Sky box for each room. Each box will be cabled to your satellite dish. You won’t need a second dish – it’s possible to have up to eight boxes running from each dish (the dish has to be fitted with an Octo LNB. Sky+ and Sky+HD boxes need two feeds from the dish, which means that one dish can’t support more than four Sky+ boxes, or eight standard Sky boxes. More on LNBs.

Socket: Make sure that you have connected the TV Link to the RF2 socket on your Sky box, as the RF1 socket is not powered.

Power: You must ensure that the RF2 socket has the power turned on to it. This is a setting in the secret engineers menu. To get to this, press ‘Services’ on the Sky remote control, then type 4 0 1 and press ‘Select’. (Sky+HD boxes, it’s ‘Services’ > 0 0 1 > ‘Select’). Go to RF Outlets, and tun on the power to RF2

Booster? Some users may have problems if using a signal booster and a Magic Eye TV link, as these can block commands from the Sky RF2 socket. Look for a booster with a Digital Bypass

Last resort: If you still have no luck, check that the cables are connected correctly, power off the Sky box and try again

39 comments

I have tried to tune my TV but with no success.I dont seem to have any spare pre sets on my TV. I can only get a poor picture through tuning on analogue.I have a problem finding a 3.5mm connector for the RF2 output from the sattelite system. Please help now going mad. Regards Roger.

Hi Roger, make sure you have connected the coax cable correctly. Don’t forget you MUST keep the copper threads/foil and peel them back rather than cutting them off – they form part of the connection and your picture/magic eye will be poor at best if you just cut them off.

Hi – Is it possible to position my Sky box in a cupboard using the WiFi solution and have multiple TV sets ? So a sender unit in the cupboard and then 2 receivers – 1 for each TV set located around the house ?

Can anyone help I have two TVs connected by magic eye that worked fine now if I have both TVs on I can watch sky on the second TV and change channels record you name it.
If I put the primary TV to stand by the second TV freezes picture and won’t allow me to do anything .
I have the red light on the magic eye and the 9 volt also I have metered out the cable all is okay.
I have been told Sky have done a software update could this be the problem.
Please any ideas would help.

Hi, I recently switched from Sky to BT and then back to Sky, subsequently I can get sky in all rooms via splitter but the freeview on all but the main TV now doesnt work, am assuming I’ve plugged something in back to front when messing around as SKy engineer originally set it all up perfectly. Knew I should have taken a photo first, we have SKY hd box, video, DVD player all connected though the same TV its like spaghetti back there

I am currently having the same problem Kev, I had my relatives set up working fine for months now 2nd TV freezes when primary is turned off. I think it must be a feature that shuts down sky box when 1st TV is off although green light on sky box remains on.
Also I have my home tvs connected through hdmi splitter and found that the 2nd TV keeps turning itself on when left in standby
It all leads me to think its some stupid update, if anyone could give any help it would greatly appreciated

Hi great site thanks you. I have a difficult set up.
Sky to hmdi splitter then on to four rooms. Works great.
then coax from RF2 to splitter in loft
coax from splitter to each tv using magic eye also works great.
Coax to a few other tvs also
The aerial splitter im using is 2 in 8 out so aerial in and sky rf2 in..
problem is watching tv on coax ie tv without hmdi the picture on sky is very very poor.. i also lost the aerial input no non sky viewing… for the tv im only interested in viewing terrestial tv i have lost the signal completely so this particular tv the only change it has had is a new splitter in loft… its a labgear LDL208LP any ideas? What to test… ps also not sure about the inputs uhs and vhs. Thanks for any responses

Hi
Just installed a second tv using the rf 2 port and seems to be working fine but when I now record on the sky I cannot watch any other channel. I get a message saying no signal detected. Any help would be appreciated.

I have just moved back to my mums where there is sky multi room and have brought my hd+ box down and used the viewing card in the other room to put in it. There is already a sky+ hd box with a wireless connector in the living room. to connect to the WiFi on the other box, will I require another wireless connector? I do not have an Ethernet cable long enough. Any info would be great. thanks. Mark

Hi!
I have a single Sky HD box which distributes the signal to TV’s around the house. To see the picture we have tuned the additional TVs to a spare analog channel to pick up the Sky signal, but new TV’s will not have analog channel tuners in the future, only digital…
Is there a solution for this?
Thanks!
Stuart

hiya everyone I’m havinh difficulties sending a signal to my to upstairs with freebies I’m sick of having stupid progarammes that I don’t even use even though my daughter wants to watch nickelodeon in my room!!

Hi, slight variation here but struggling to find an answer anywhere else. I am getting multiroom but my tv is wall fitted (with current cables – power + ariel) hidden behind the wall (power cables come out through ariel wall unit). with my new multiroom box i want to locate this away from the tv and connect ‘wirelessly’ in terms of the HD connection. Is there any way / device / dongle that will allow me to do this?

This provided a decent picture but over time the device has degraded with small intermittent interference “spikes” – I’m guessing this method will also prevent utilization of the eye for channel changing.

I would like to see Sky drop the necessity for cabled add-on boxes with a wireless extension box from the main hub = Im sure the tech is possible.

Hi, I currently have a sky box in my living room and a multi room box in the kids playroom. I have just built a garden room at the end of my garden, some 30 metres away. What is the best way to get Sky to the garden room? Is it option 1? Would this work as it is approximately 40 metres from living room sky box to the proposed garden room site.
I just wondered if the distance between TVs and the long cable run would be a problem. Or is option 2 a better option with those wireless video sender kit?
Don’t really want to get another multi room box as I am already paying a fortune each month to sky!!
Thanks
Ade

I have sky plus in main room and had multi room to second set in bedroom via coax cable and magic eye from the sky box in main room.This worked fine,i then wanted to change the tv in bedroom The trouble is this only scans on digital channels.
How do i scan for sky signals???

Hi We have 2 Sky Q boxes in our house and every television can accept either Box 1 or Box 2. To get TV from Box 1 we enter 1 on the TV remote and for Box 2 we enter 2.
We have bought another TV and want to be able to do the same but do not know how to go about it. The other TVs were set up by a technician. At the moment all we can receive on the new TV is Freeview

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